TECHY TECH WORLD

 Maserati is planning to launch its first electric car in 2020, according to AutoCar. The luxury automaker, which is part of Fiat-Chrysler group, will make a battery-powered version of its Alfieri concept car by the end of the decade, according to the report. The Italian car manufacturer also said that it plans to launch a version with a V6 engine in 2019. Maserati first unveiled it Alfieri concept car in March 2014 at the Geneva Auto Show. The car was designed to pay tribute to Maserati's racing heritage, which is why it boasts form and design elements similar to Maserati's classic sports cars.  There's no word yet on what kind of range the vehicle will have, but considering other sports car makers like Porshe and Aston Martin plan to launch electric vehicles with ranges exceeding 200 miles per charge by 2020, it's likely the upcoming Alfieri will have a similar range. Maserati joins a long list of automakers planning to launch at least one fully-elect

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, has cultivated relationships with China’s leaders, including President Xi Jinping. He has paid multiple visits to the country to meet its top internet executives. He has made an effort to learn Mandarin. Inside Facebook, the work to enter China runs far deeper. The social network has quietly developed software to suppress posts from appearing in people’s news feeds in specific geographic areas, according to three current and former Facebook employees, who asked for anonymity because the tool is confidential. The feature was created to help Facebook get into China, a market where the social network has been blocked, these people said. Mr. Zuckerberg has supported and defended the effort, the people added. Facebook has restricted content in other countries before, such as Pakistan, Russia and Turkey, in keeping with the typical practice of American internet companies that generally comply with government requests to block certain content a

The planned controls, which were announced in a late night Facebook post, follow accusations that a flood of fake news stories influenced the U.S. presidential election. "The bottom line is: we take misinformation seriously," wrote Zuckerberg. "We take this responsibility seriously. We've made significant progress, but there is more work to be done." The CEO said that Facebook (FB, Tech30) is working to develop stronger fake news detection, a warning system, easier reporting and technical ways to classify misinformation. Facebook has also been in contact with fact checking organizations. For Zuckerberg, it's a sharp reversal in tone from comments made in the immediate aftermath of the election. "I think the idea that fake news on Facebook -- of which it's a small amount of content -- influenced the election in any way is a pretty crazy idea," he said last week. Zuckerberg has come under pressure to do more to fight the fake news

 When Nintendo releases the NES Classic Edition on November 11th, it won't limit the nostalgia to the hardware you take home. The company is marking the launch by resurrecting its classic Power Line for that weekend. Call 425-885-7529 between 9AM and 10PM Eastern each day (until the night of the 13th) and you can get both hints for "several" games as well as stories from people who manned the phones on the original line back in the 1980s. The tips are pre-recorded, alas, but this could easily rekindle memories of a pre-web era when your best bets at help usually involved calling the Power Line or asking a friend. Our main question: will the phone line stick to the same tips you got as a kid, or offer a few juicy secrets?

Microsoft has just revealed arguably its biggest Windows 10 upgrade so far and the irony is it is all about making things smaller… Speaking on the official Windows blog, Windows program manager Bill Karagounis explained that Windows 10 is going to get much smarter about how it downloads updates: “We are announcing the next generation of our delivery technologies incorporated into our latest Insider builds called the Unified Update Platform (UUP). One of the biggest community and customer benefits of UUP is the reduction you’ll see in download size on PCs.” UUP uses differential download technology meaning it will download “only the changes that have been made since the last time you updated your device, rather than a full build”. Karagounis says this should reduce the size of major Windows 10 updates by “approximately 35%”. This is a big deal. UUP will become the universal system used by all versions of Windows 10 – including on smartphones and tablets – and it should mean users not

A tweet posted shortly after Apple’s recent Macbook launch event underlined the absurdity: Apple now sells 17 different types of dongle. In its ever-escalating war against connectivity ports, Apple’s latest computers do away with the SD card port, a full-size USB port, and the HDMI port. Instead, you’ll need a dongle to convert those “legacy” connectors, as Apple put it on Friday, into the new, smaller USB-C port. "We recognize that many users, especially pros, rely on legacy connectors to get work done today and they face a transition,” the company said in a statement, without acknowledging that Apple’s newest iPhone, released just last month, is one such “legacy” device - without a dongle (or a different cable, sold separately), you can’t connect Apple’s new smartphone to Apple’s new laptop. “We want to help them move to the latest technology and peripherals, as well as accelerate the growth of this new ecosystem." That help will be a decent discount on the price of t